Barb, I'm going to quote you to my brother. He supports the FMA because it defines marriage as the bible defines it. He doesn't have a problem with gay people having relationships, "but you can't call it a marriage when it's not," he says. Yeesh! He doesn't get the whole "It's not a marriage to you but it is to me" thing. This is what drives me nuts about religiously dogmatic people who can't look up from their text to see the reality of the people around them. He's a good guy though. Really.
Has he seen the movie, Kirk? Unfortunately, neither of my brothers ever will. The eldest just isn't into movies at all and hasn't seen any in years, and the next eldest is but said about it shortly after the Oscars, "You know I'll never watch it, but I don't get how something can win every other award imaginable and then not win that one." They're both very conservative, but the latter is at least a Libertarian, so he says "I wouldn't want to be with another guy, but who am I to tell other guys they can't?" Perhaps it helps that we're a family of atheists - we all were jaded on the religion thing very long ago.
It kills me when Bible thumpers think they have the corner on the market of defining what marriage is. "Marriage is between a man and a woman." First of all, when you ask them where
exactly in the Bible it states that (which I have many times, just for shits and giggles), most of them can't tell you. And the ones that can use, as usual, some highly subjective passage. Not to mention that they're quoting a book that was written a couple thousand years ago. And us straighties have it down, do we? How come the divorce rate is 51% last I checked? Meanwhile, the four gay couples I know personally who have been partnered for years are still going strong at 8, 12, 15 and 20 years with no end in sight.
And how come God chose only
those people in that time to talk to, anyway? What? He's done talkin', now, is he? WTF?
Sorry. I could go on all day. But I'll stop myself before I get myself in heap big trouble.